Most animal cells have the ability to secrete intracellular origin extracellular vesicles having various sizes and components, and these extracellular vesicles are found in all biological fluids including blood, urine, saliva, and cell culture fluids (Loyer X, Vion A C, Tedgui A, Boulanger C M. Microvesicles as cell-cell messengers in cardiovascular diseases. Circ Res 2014; 114:345-53) (Ohno S, Ishikawa A, Kuroda M. Roles of exosomes and microvesicles in disease pathogenesis. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 2013; 65:398-401).
Extracellular vesicles are membrane-structured vesicles having a size of about 20 nm to about 5 μm in diameter, are heterogeneous in size and composition, and include a number of different species such as exosomes (about 30 to 100 nm), ectosomes, microvesicles (about 100 to 1000 nm), and microparticles.
The different types of extracellular vesicles are distinguished from one another based on their origin, diameter, density in sucrose, shape, sedimentation velocity, lipid composition, protein marker, or secretion mode (i.e., whether it is signal (inducible) secretion or spontaneous (constitutive) secretion). For example, microvesicles are known to be a membrane vesicle having an irregular shape of about from 100 to 1,000 nm, to bud toward the outside of the plasma membrane (originated from the plasma membrane), and to have integrin, selectin, a marker including a CD40 ligand, and lipids including phosphatidylserine. Meanwhile, exosomes are known to be the smallest membrane vesicles having a cup shape of about from 30 to 100 nm (<200 nm), to bud from the inside of late endosomes (originated from endosomes), and to have tetraspanins of CD63 and CD9, markers including TSG101 and ESCRT, and lipids including cholesterol, sphingomyelin, ceramide, and phosphatidylserine.
Extracellular vesicles reflect the state of the origin cells (donor cells) from which the extracellular vesicles are secreted, exhibit various biological activities depending on the cells from which the extracellular vesicles are secreted, and play an important role in cell-cell interactions by transporting genetic materials and proteins between cells.
In plants as well, the fusion of the plasma membrane and the multivesicular bodies causes the release of microvesicles into the extracellular space and vesicles in the multivesicular bodies are observed in the extracellular space in various plant cells of various plant species (Marchant R, Peat A, Banbury G H. The ultrastructural basis of hyphal growth. New Phytol. 1967; 66:623-629) (Halperin W, Jensen W A. Ultrastructural changes during growth and embryogenesis in carrot cell cultures. J Ultrastruct Res. 1967; 18:428-443) (Marchant R, Robards A W. Membrane systems associated with the plasmalemma of plant cells. Ann Bot. 1968; 32:457-471). In addition, it has been reported in recent studies that exosome-like nanoparticles derived from plant cells are similar to exosomes derived from mammalian cells in nano-sized vesicle structures and nanoparticle compositions (An, Q, Hückelhoven, R, Kogel, K H and van Bel, A J (2006). Multivesicular bodies participate in a cell wall-associated defence response in barley leaves attacked by the pathogenic powdery mildew fungus. Cell Microbiol 8: 1009-1019) (Regente, M, Pinedo, M, Elizalde, M and de la Canal, L (2012). Apoplastic exosomelike vesicles: a new way of protein secretion in plants? Plant Signal Behav 7: 544-546).
Hitherto, exosomes have been used primarily as biomarkers and techniques to utilize the efficacy of exosome itself and thus to use the exosome in specific applications have not yet been developed. In particular, specific applications of membrane-structured exosome-like vesicles derived from plant cells have been little known, and in the case of ginseng, the hair growth effect of ginseng-derived extract or a single component thereof has been reported but the hair growth effect of membrane-structured exosome-like vesicles, which is a complex physiologically active substance extracted from ginseng, has not been reported. Prior art relating to compositions for preventing hair loss and promoting hair growth is disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-1530490.